Fans Were Surprised to See David Harbour as Red Guardian in the 'Black Widow' Trailer

Scarlett Johansson's Black Widow character is in a ton of different Marvel movies and is easily one of the most recognized Avengers out there. Which made it a bit weird that she didn't have any standalone films. Heck, even Ant-Man got two of his own movies, and he was a hero not many people even knew existed up until a couple of years ago.

But she finally has a standalone film, and now that the first trailer's out, people are geeking out, especially over David Harbour's role as Red guardian.

The release of the ScarJo-led flick is part of Marvel's "Phase 4" of entries into the MCU. When it comes to crafting extended cinematic universes, there isn't a studio in the world that's currently doing a better job than Marvel right now.

Black Widow manages to introduce other characters from the MCU in Natasha Romanoff's origin story of how she ended up becoming the badass hero spy we all know and love. Thanks to some "leaks" from Marvel concept artist Andy Park, we also know who one of the film's villains is going to be.

Comic book fans will recognize the bad guy (and sometimes anti-hero) as the mercenary who is capable of learning and perfectly replicating someone's movements, including superheroes, at the drop of a hat thanks to injecting himself with a serum that makes him capable of absorbing knowledge better than anyone else.

This allows Taskmaster to predict his opponent's moves, which means Natasha will have her hands full with him when the two go toe-to-toe.

Rachel Weisz is set to make an appearance in the film as well as the head trainer for the top secret spy facility where Black Widow received her training and actress Florence Pugh has a sizable role in the movie as Black Widow's surrogate sister, Yelena Belova.

One big reveal of the Black Widow trailer was that David Harbour is appearing as Russia's version of Captain America, the Red Guardian. Although there were several men who put on the Red Guardian's costume, David Harbour will be portraying Alexei Shostakov, a skilled fighter pilot whose distinctions in combat garnered interest from the KGB. They subsequently enlisted him for their own super soldier program and that's how he becomes the man in red.

He's very similar to Captain America, but David's portrayal of the Red Guardian is a more comedic one. He looks a bit over the hill and is playing up the aged, superhero-who-gained-weight-but-has-still-got-it trope. Honestly, it's working for him and it looks like he's bringing a ton of fun into the film. 

In an interview with IGN David Harbour says that in terms of the Marvel timeline, Black Widow takes place between Captain America: Civil War and before the events of Infinity War. What's more is that Natasha and the Red Guardian have known one another for quite some time, so the two characters do have history with one another: "They’ve known each other for a while and there’s a complex history there. This movie happens right after Captain America: Civil War, and so those events do factor in."

He continued, "She is a Russian operative in a sense, and so they have some history together themselves. But there is a dynamic that evolves where she’s gone beyond in terms of joining the Avengers and his reactions to that."

Avengers fans have heard references to Natasha's involvement in "Budapest" before and they'll be happy to hear that we'll finally get the answer to that in Black Widow, as the incident will be a focal point of the film's storyline.

For the star of the film, however, she's more excited for fans to see the flawed side of the famous character, "I’m excited for fans to see the flawed side of her, what she perceives to be the flawed side of her. I’m looking to wipe out some of that red in my ledger so you guys will be seeing more of that."

The movie's set to hit theaters on May 1, 2020 — will you be checking the origin story out?